{"id":871,"date":"2019-05-08T13:11:36","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T17:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/litandthecity\/?p=871"},"modified":"2019-05-08T18:29:46","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T22:29:46","slug":"edith-wharton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/litandthecity\/2019\/05\/08\/edith-wharton\/","title":{"rendered":"Edith Wharton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EdithEdith Wharton<\/strong><\/p>\n

Born January 24, 1862 in NYC \u2013 died August 11, 1937 in Paris, France<\/p>\n

Who was she?<\/em><\/p>\n

Edith Wharton was an American author best known for her stories and novels about the upper-class society to which she was born. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921 and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1996. Many of Wharton’s novels are characterized by a subtle use of dramatic irony. Having grown up in upper-class, late-nineteenth-century society, Wharton\u00a0 became one of its most astute critics (Britannica “Edith Wharton).<\/p>\n

Her major works include The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence<\/em> for which\u00a0 she won the Pulitzer Prize, Ethan Frome<\/em>, and numerous collections of short stories including her autobiography A Backward Glance<\/em> which appeared in 1934. Despite not publishing her first novel until she was forty years-old, Wharton was an amazing writer and produced in total fifteen novels, seven novellas, and eighty-five short stories . On top of that, she wrote books on design, travel, literary and cultural criticism, and a memoir.<\/p>\n

Edith Wharton’s Connection to NYC<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The above is a picture of Edith Wharton’s home on West Twenty-third Street. Wharton came from a distinguished and prominent New York family. She was educated by private tutors in her home. They belonged to that tiny but powerful New York clan who clung together, intermarried, set the tone and made the rules for society in Manhattan. I think it is important to take a look into how Wharton sees NYC, “New York is very slender — it stretches from Third Avenue to Sixth, essentially — and its center is what is now the campus of New York University… ‘One of the most depressing impressions of my childhood is my recollection of the intolerable ugliness of New York'” (“Edith Wharton”).<\/p>\n

Fun Facts!<\/strong><\/p>\n

American children\u2019s books that contained slang words were forbidden in Wharton\u2019s home. Wharton’s mother forbid her from reading many novels and Wharton said she “read everything else but novels until the day of my marriage.” [70] Instead, Wharton read the classics, philosophy, and history. Her influences included Darwin and Herbert Spencer, which contributed to her ethnographic style of novelization.<\/p>\n

Wharton’s paternal family, the Joneses, were a very prominent and wealthy family from which the saying \u201ckeeping up with the Joneses\u201d derives. (She was born Edith Newbold Jones).<\/p>\n

A Backward Glance: The Background<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n